Ghostface is a soul man, through and through. His tastes and musical aesthetic always drew heavily from the emotionally dense era of artists like Al Green and Donny Hathaway, even when he and his clan were emerging from the blood-soaked streets of crack-era New York. His pairing with Adrian Younge, the man behind BlackDynamite‘ssoundtrack, on Twelve Reasons To Die allows Ghost to delve deeper into some of his influences, while also creating one of the best conceptual pieces of the Wu-Tang oeuvre. Really: who else could play the role of a hitman double-crossed by his mob family, who gets reincarnated after being melted down into vinyl records?

Standout Songs: “Blood On The Cobblestones,” “Enemies All Around Me” and “Murder Spree”

I’ll be the first to say it then: yes we live in a time where we can’t wait for moments like this album to shut down current pop trends but this album under performed. on paper it seemed right and that first single solidified the anticipation. There were some boring tracks on here and a couple of moments where folks was rhyming off beat (still trying to figure out how you don’t fix that during mix downs) It wasn’t bad just not as good as the hype behind it